note that, in SQL Server 2008 (IIRC) the varchar (max) is now huge and can avoid any need for TEXT columns.<BR><BR>Simply changing to that can solve a whole host of issues.

In another thread someone suggested I use MINUS, but I was under the impression that only Oracle had the MINUS function, does SQL Server 2005 also have this ...

For National 5 Computing Science, revise how SQL operations allow databases to be queried. Use of SELECT, FROM, WHERE, AND and OR are key areas of SQL.